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Talk:VOCALOID5/@comment-25224941-20181013043416/@comment-53539-20181013093532
The only things it removed were the plug-ins and XSY, it left most of everything else in. Allowing plug-ins resulted in unofficial ones appearing that exploited the software, making it dangerous and most simply weren't useful except the odd ones like language phoneme matching. I don't know why they retired it fully as it wasn't that bad. My only issue with the language plug-ins was people got lazy and relied upon them. A lot of the plugins now are either redundant or part of the software that were of any real use. So their disappearance is nothing big. Support Plug-ins is also time consuming and Vocaloid only ever offered a limited ability to influence the software. The most major was Vocalisner, which few bought. It was only in Japanese and wasn't that good, most Producers already had access to tools that did the same thing and if you had a real singer who could sing why would you need Vocaloid? Other then swapping out vocalists there was nothing it allowed that producers didn't have better of and often the results were unimpressive and LQ. XSY was alright but not many producers were using it, and to be fair if you read our article on XSY you can see a lot of the problems. You've got a lot of potential, but the impact the second vocal had on the first was random and too unpredictable. The results were LQ if the vocals were different. And again, people hacked the software to allow any vocal to XSY even if they were two different languages. The issue was different vocals had different licensing agreements so if you did Miku x Gumi you basically had a vocal you could never sell any of the songs for. The more extreme the vocals were differently the worst the vocal result was. So two HQ vocals could produce a very LQ result. Or a HQ vocal could gain bugs and glitches because you XSY'ed it with a LQ one. Loosing both functions isn't such a big deal. Most other things were kept from V4 except these two functions and even expanded upon, the new file type for example allows for even more data to be recorded. Vocaloid can now be a plug-in to other software again due to having ReWire once more. The software has been upgraded to support 32-bit. V5 is overall the best entry its just been rolled out too soon like they have been doing since V2. This time was the first time it backfired seriously. Some of the things about the engine is I feel done to revival CeVIO, while others were to update the Vocaloid software. Some restored Vocaloid back to its original intention (ReWire) as the software lost some direction with V3 and V4. V4 wasn't the best update, though it allowed Vocaloid to be on Windows 10 and was essentially the stable version for this... It was released with barely any new functions and was the biggest complaint of all. Sure, some minor things were added, but it all boiled down to XSY and GWL, two minor functions that you could do away with. Not everyone was a fan of XSY for reasons I said. IF we're talking best versions, having been here from the start so to speak V3 was overall the best version. I remember everyone being wowed and excited over the Vocaloid V3 introduction party. Every day there was something new to hear. The software was a vast improvement over V2 with 3 new languages, job plug-ins and more. IT was a massive step up. While V4... V4 was rushed out exceptionally early because the father of Vocaloid, Kenmochi Hideki, was retiring and he wanted the engine out before he retired. So V4 was pathetic and the least significant update. Overall V5 is just a mixed bag, its a fierce beast but when it bares its teeth its mouth is all gummy. Thats what it is. I think the only major feature people miss is the few who enjoyed XSY. So it may return in V6. Edit: The only other thing we've lost is V2 vocals. Now this is not that big of a deal if we're talking Japanese Vocaloids as only Piko was lost. No biggy, Piko's been replaced with Yuu, Arsloid and Fukase. The English side at this point has lost 8 vocals Leon, Lola, Miriam, Big Al, Prima, Tonio, Sonika and Sweet Ann. That is more of a bigger deal. The thing is V2 was already gone by the end of V4 and its a result of V2 not being practical to support anymore. Its a software that is old and out of date that wasn't getting many new sales. V1 was already retired. We can expect V3 to hit threat of retirement in 2 or so years, though they may stick around for longer as the voicebanks themselves aren't particular major different to V4 vocals, whereas V1 and V2s did have major differences between them and V3. I think part of the problem is Vocaloid is no longer getting as much attention as it did in 2007-9. So some things have likely been reflected in this version. Essentially since 2014, as I've said elsewhere, vocal synths have taken a hit in popularity. Further more CeVIO came along during V3s lifespan to offer a suitable rival. IT wasn't as good but could do talk, which also wasn't as good as Voiceroid... But the fact it handled both talk and speech made it a suitable consideration. Vocaloid is not the only vocal synth dominating the market anymore.